Surrey enjoys further success at Advance HE Teaching Excellence Awards

The University’s Hackathon17 team, led by Dr Shelini Surendran and Kat Mack, was recognised for the teamwork demonstrated in enhancing teaching and learning through collaborative approaches. Surrey is only the second University to win a CATE award three years running.

The Hackathon team is a cross-university collaboration involving staff from all academic faculties, Student Enterprise, Library and Learning, Surrey Institute of Education (SIoE), and CES PGRs. Collaborating year-round, they deliver a multi-disciplinary student entrepreneurship hackathon where teams address the UN Sustainable Development Goals, working with global industries and local businesses, social enterprises and charities.

Over three years, the team has expanded, evolving into a credit-bearing Global Graduate Award in Entrepreneurship. Its commitment to innovation and student success is evident in strong relationships, interdepartmental links, and genuine friendships, fostering a supportive culture. 

Noteworthy achievements include impactful international conference presentations and research outputs. The team led a successful hackathon in the UK-Singapore Alliance, significantly contributed to Surrey Institute of Education's AI hackathon, and organised a social leadership project in India as the coveted main prize. This summer two of the team travelled to Sri Lanka with 19 Surrey students to run a hackathon that focused on social impact in the local community. These accomplishments underscore their dedication to fostering entrepreneurship and impactful collaborations. 

National Teaching Fellow award

Meanwhile, Dr Behnejad, who is Associate Professor in Civil and Environmental Engineering, is an advocate of tactile, or ‘hands-on’, approaches in structural engineering education.

Based on his industrial experience, Alireza, who is Surrey’s first National Teaching Fellow from FEPS,  believes in the importance of giving students the opportunity to work collaboratively (locally and internationally) on real design challenges. He developed and implemented the cross-disciplinary DAD Project (Design, Assemble and Dismantle) in 2015 to improve architecture and engineering students’ practical considerations of structural design and develop complementary skills of teamwork, communication, and time-management. He also developed a bamboo curriculum for civil engineering undergraduate programmes in the UK.

Alireza has always been passionate about raising the profile of excellence through international collaborations and he established a network of universities for this purpose. Students from all partner universities play a vital role in these collaborations and benefit from participation by being better prepared for dealing with current/future global issues such as the education of sustainable construction materials. He organised 47 courses/workshops abroad (2018-23) and his hands-on approaches were embedded in the curriculum in Brazil, China, Iran, Malaysia and Mexico.

This summer, Alireza co-organised the FEPS Summer School at Southeast University (SEU) in Nanjing, in China, with Dan Bompa. Entitled the Magic Folds 2024, participants including 11 students from CEE, MES and CES (Levels 5-8), as well as one recent CEE graduate. A total of 10 students received Turing funding.

Both Alireza and the Hackathon17 team are previous winners at the Vice-Chancellor’s Awards for Staff Excellence. Alireza won Teacher of the Year in 2021, while the Hackathon won the Collaborative Teaching Award last year.

Advance HE is a British charity and professional membership scheme promoting excellence in higher education. It advocates evidence-based teaching methods and awards fellowships as professional recognition for university teachers. 

If you would like to be considered for one of these awards in future do discuss it with your line manager, DLT or ADE. For further information about the schemes visit the SIoE’s NTFS webpage and CATE page or the Advance HE website.